Here is our little apartment in Munich on Thursday morning, just after Kate's expert cleaning job. She constantly surprises me with her packing prowess; we still fit all our stuff into two carry-on sized suitcases (plus a backpack) despite buying in Munich: jeans and a jumper (for me), a jumper and two umbrellas (for Kate), a pillow, four thick German textbooks (from the language school), and various knickknacks.
Our last day of German school was a little sad as there were several of us leaving, but we all had fun. Particularly good was a discussion about attitudes to work and careers. A young Japanese woman in our class was explaining how she worked as a paralegal from 8am to 9pm, usually six days a week, with only an hour (or actually half hour) break, and only two weeks (actually one) of annual leave. This prompted the young Italian in our class to exclaim loudly "Mamma mia, questa non e una vita", followed by much head-shaking as to how such a work schedule was even possible. He admitted that Italians worked till eight in the evening or so, but only after a four hour siesta. We ended with a game of Tabu (like Pictionary except you describe the word verbally without using a few specified other words) where we did distinctly better than we had in the first week.
After a leisurely lunchtime (leaving it a little late to set off for the train station) we rushed to the Hauptbahnhof for the 3.27 train. We arrived at 3.15 but there were long ticket queues, so we went to the automatic ticket machine. We were going to buy the standard Munich-Salzburg ticket except that the nice Deutsche Bahn man at the machine advised us instead to get the "Bayern Ticket", which allows you travel as a pair to anywhere in Bavaria for only 27 euros together, including Salzburg (counted as on the border). We then rushed to the platform and got on the train with two minutes to spare. Unfortunately when the conductor lady got to us, it transpired that the Bavaria Ticket was not valid for the express train we had taken, so the DB man had been truthful but misleading. She was very nice though and let us just make up the difference. Before we knew it (about an hour and a quarter) we were in Salzburg and it was raining, just as we thought we had escaped the Munich rain. We got the bus to our hostel (actually very new and flash), which is right near the old part of town. You can see here the medieval Festung (fortress) Hohensalzburg) from our hostel, just on top of a beautiful construction site.
Not wanting to waste a moment, we set out and visited the Mozart Wohnung, apparently the best of the several Mozart themed museums in Salzburg. It is in the quite fancy apartment where the Mozart family moved once Mozart was 20 or so and had experienced considerable success overseas. I was most surprised in the museum's exhibitions by how Mozart's temperament differed from his father's --- Wolfgang happy-go-lucky and brilliant but inattentive, Leopold strict and pushy but supportive to a fault, ultimately getting into extreme debt through Wolfgang's lifestyle and frequent trips. It was a little sad to discover that Leopold is thought to have been buried in an unmarked spot in the general Salzburg cemetery. Perhaps it is the curse of child stars everywhere to never fully grow up. (I believe the split infinitive is accepted correct practice nowadays, and the available alternatives for this sentence were significantly worse. Here is Mozartplatz in the old city (only erected about 50 years after his death; Mozart and Salzburg never really loved each other while he was alive).
As you may have read, finding good food in Munich had been a bit of a challenge if we didn't eat at home, but no such trouble in Salzburg (possibly because of the number of tourists). In the north of the historic district we found Spicy Spices, a charming little vegetarian/vegan eatery full of Bio (organic) hippy produce that you can buy and take home with you. (It seems very common in Germany and Austria to have eateries with randomly mixed German/English in their titles and menus; hence "Weine, Biere und Hot Drinks", "Smoothies --- 100% Pure Frucht", "Kaffee To Go" and so on; also a travel agent with "Oesterreichs einziges echtes Last Minute" or some such). I spent much of the time puzzling what "Gewuerze" were on some of the many hippy writings on the wall, but I felt very silly to learn later that it meant "Spices".
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